


Matryoshka Doll

by penseavenir17



Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 20:51:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10316729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penseavenir17/pseuds/penseavenir17
Summary: After about 1,000 photos, 100 books, 40 years, ten hairstyles, and six black pantsuits (rf:2000 acceptance speech) you would think someone would have cracked the code of Hillary Diane, but still to this day nobody has. Except one man. She means something different to everyone but some how he's opened up the matryoshka doll.





	1. Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so, I wrote this on inauguration day and never posted it because um I didn't want to but then my friend Helena was all like "You need to post this!" and yada yada yada so now I'm posting this even though it lacks plot and character development. It is basically just a bunch of words but they are eloquently placed into sentences and phrases. Anyways, I'm really not sure how this works but I'm going with it. I also did not feel the need to proof this so I'm sure it is filled with grammatical errors.

Brown curly hair, wild as a buck. Large coke-bottle glasses covering her stunning blue eyes, overwhelming her little frame. She didn’t believe in conformity. She didn’t wear any makeup. She was married, but you couldn’t tell by her last name. She had little interest in fashion or cooking. She didn’t want to stay home. She worked when it seemed like no one wanted her to. She didn’t really care. She was strong and persistent. She was tenacious and she had a wit about her. But above all else, she had confidence and it came from within. She trusted her own judgement, found no use in doubting herself. This young girl was fierce and nasty.  
\-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --  
She sat at her vanity fixing her pearl earrings.  
“It’s almost time to leave Mrs.Clinton! Are you ready?” She heard from the other side of the door  
Looking into the mirror she saw herself, or at least herself now. Beautiful bouffant ash-blonde locks blown out by John Barrett, hairstylist to the stars. Her makeup was perfection, her eyeliner was winged, her lips lined, her foundation blended. She looked gorgeous and she should. This was suppose to be her night. At 12:00pm on January 20th 2016 she would be sworn in. That night she would wear an inaugural gown that they couldn’t put in the First Ladies exhibit of the Smithsonian. That night the world would celebrate as she broke the mold of a leader. That night her country would celebrate their new leader, a leader they were proud of. One that although she wasn’t born poor or abused, had been through hell and abyss to stand where she was standing. None of that would come to fruition. Instead she would have to stand there with a smile and watch the man who destroyed her take his crown. The man who took her seat. The one that would stand there and call her the devil. The one who tried to break her with her husband’s past. The one who called her crooked. Frankly this wasn’t the part that hurt about this man. She had been called worse things by better people. What hurt her was what he did to others, who he was to them. What hurt her wasn’t that she lost but that she lost to man that will hurt so many people. Of course if you say that nobody would believe you. This isn’t the mask they gave her. It had been 40 years since the coke-bottle glasses and that Hillary was long gone.  
She heard a whisper in her ear  
“Hello beautiful.”  
She knew that southern twang. She felt his long skinny hand, one that she had praised to many people, on her shoulder. She looked up at him. He was older than she remembered him. Those hands were callused. His hair no longer salt and pepper, just salt. His face was thin and wrinkled. People had been saying these things for years, but now she saw it. Not that she cared.  
She let him take her hand as she stood up  
“Absolutely stunning,” He said as she spun around like a princess, “Let’s go.”  
They walked down the creaky steps carefully as to make sure she didn’t trip. Even with heels she still look like a dwarf standing next to him, or maybe he looked like a giant. They were greeted at the door by Secret Service, aids, and their jackets. After taking the latter he opened the black door and they stepped out. Camera’s flashing, video rolling, reporters with microphones screaming questions, “How do you feel Secretary Clinton?”, “Why are you going?”, “Can we have an interview?”. None of it mattered, she didn’t care. That night more than most, she was ready to be plastic. She knew how to do it. Growing up her father taught her never to show emotion, emotions make you vulnerable, and vulnerability makes you weak. She had employed that philosophy for decades but today more than ever, she needed it.  
Walking from the car to the ballroom took all the strength she had. From the outside she looked gallant and courageous. She knew the people thought she was arete but that meant very little to her, after all because of these very people, public opinion was no longer a variable in her life.  
To the press she looked disingenuous and feigned. But didn’t she always? She had detested them since ‘92 and frankly the feeling is mutual. Now that her life consisted of walks in the woods and watching Broadway plays she didn’t understand why they still tried to tear her down.  
To her aids she just looked like Hillary. She was doing something true to character, she was being benevolent and altruistic.  
To Bill, well he could see through it all. Below the fake smile and statement necklace was a woman who had gone through so much affliction and was standing, not unharmed but standing. Below her he saw a resolute woman. Unwavering and strong. An icon. Below her was the workhorse. She was astute and shrewd. She worked into the early morning, doing her homework. Below her was a ravishing princess. He knew she resented this side of herself, but couldn’t ignore her. She was there. She’s the one who would get giddy over a new pair of shoes or radiate when someone complimented her dress. Below her, the feisty little girl. The one who was steadfast and stubborn. The only person this girl didn’t question was herself. Underneath that girl was the slightly quixotic one. She was going to change the world. An ideologue at her best. Sometimes this girl seemed the most covered, but he always knew there was one hiding conscientiously below the rest. The girl in the coke-bottle glasses. Like a matryoshka doll she stood, layer over layer, stacking on top of eachother. But nobody needed to know that. At least nobody here did.


	2. Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And when my time is up  
> Have I done enough?  
> Will they tell my story?  
>  \- Hamilton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is short and it is all I have written of this, so far and possibly at all. There is absolutely no plot to this and it really just my ramblings post-election but I think I like it. I reread it once and I wanted to cry so I didn't really proof it again. I'm sorry about any grammatical errors.

She was lost. It had been 72 days since that loathsome night.  
She could vividly remember every moment of it. She remember her suffragette white pantsuit. She remembered sitting in that hotel room with everyone. Fiona playing with Charlotte on the floor.   
She remembered the salmon, the roasted carrots, she could remember the vegan pizza. She remembered sitting with her husband, writing her speech.  
One for the then-inevitable outcome and one for the unlikely prospect. As the night went on and the sun over Manhattan set she remembered the contingency of not being president growing. She remembered every heartbreaking moment of that night.   
Reaching the ballroom, she quickly guided him to the dance floor. They were dancing on the floor and he glanced at her face. It had been 45 years, he had learned to read her but tonight he couldn’t do it. Her face was blank, not emotionless, just blank. He could look right through her smile, but couldn’t tell what was underneath it. Maybe, he couldn’t read her face, because she couldn’t write it.   
She didn’t know what to feel. It’s not that she had never lost before. She lost in 2008, she lost in 1980, she lost in 1974 and that was just elections. But this was different. This wasn’t a health care program, this wasn’t an education policy, this was everything.   
She knew that she could go on without being president but she couldn’t let her life, her world be a footnote in history. It would sting a little every time she was announced as “President & Mrs.Clinton” and it would hurt to be remember as a former first lady. For decades she was told that she didn’t have any landmark accomplishments and to her that was fine, after all one day she would be remembered as the first woman president. But that day would never come.   
By January she knew that she was the martyr for all women in America but who else would remember that? Would they remember that she had done so much, after all her greatest accomplishments weren’t signed by a president or put in a book. Her greatest accomplishment was figurative, cultural. She, for better or for worse, was an icon, a figure, a statue. She had singlehandedly changed American culture. But who would know? Who would remember?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short & Sweet

**Author's Note:**

> This goes out to you, Helena!  
> (for the sole reason of otherwise I would not have posted it)


End file.
